Memorial of St. Dominic

I came to you, brothers, to proclaim the mystery of God, not by philosophical argument but by the power of the Spirit. A follower of Jesus is a proclaimer of the mystery of God. Assisted by the Holy Spirit, a proclaimer of the mystery of God ensures that the content of his/her proclamation is not from any other source but God alone. St. Dominic certainly understood this very well. Growing up in a medieval society that was infested with a wave of different interpretations of the Gospel that sought to distort the teachings of Jesus, St. Dominic, though learned, resisted the temptation to deviate from the interpretation that was officially approved by the Church. Rather than join the heretical movements that were gaining popularity and becoming more appealing to literate individuals like himself, St. Dominic chose to fight them as he refuted their teachings. He dedicated his life in fiercely fighting the Albigensian heresy (dualism), a cause for which he founded a congregation, the Order of Preachers. Albigensian heresy taught a separation of the spiritual from the material, maintaining that only the spiritual is good. As a teaching, it vilified the doctrine of Incarnation because God, who is both good and spiritual, could not assume matter (for matter is evil). Consequently, the human aspects of Jesus such as poverty that was forming the basis of popular spiritual movements and devotions in the medieval Church, were dismissed by the Albigensians. The Albigensian heresy taught that poverty, itself being ‘evil’ by definition, could not have been embraced by Jesus. Their teaching was in stark contradiction to that of the Church which maintained that Jesus and the apostles, including the Blessed Mary, led a life of poverty. Dominic vehemently disagreed with them, even going as far as embracing a life of poverty himself. Jesus embraced a life of poverty because it was good, and men and women who felt called to embrace it were following in the footsteps of Jesus. It was a mystery that was hidden to the Albigensians. In today’s first reading, St. Paul is appealing to the Christian community in Corinth to let themselves be ‘schooled’ in the wisdom of the Gospel message. The problems that the community was facing was a result of their failure to let the Gospel message speak to them. For although the values that the Gospel message proposes (humility, forgiveness, meekness, and letting go of feelings of entitlement) were associated with weakness and looked down upon in their society, they were the answers to the problems of their day. As men and women who had been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, they had to stop relying solely on their human wisdom. This is what St. Dominic did when he resisted the temptation to join the heretical movements that were challenging the teachings of the Church.